Before heading back to our hideout, I stop by a local school to pick up take-out supper from the cafeteria. I ask the server to fill plastic containers with sweet potato stew and a salad of corn and black beans.

“Portions for two, please,” I say.

I am wearing my baseball cap as well as sunglasses. The server says, “Nice glasses, honey. The style suits you.”

This is true irony. The sunglasses are pink and have rhinestones embedded in their frames. Johnny found the glasses in the janitor’s office, and he insists I wear them outside our hideout so nobody recognizes me. I do not wear them at the infirmary, however, because I fear looking suspicious.

While I am preparing to leave, a do-gooder in a purple armband stands at the cafeteria podium, a bullhorn in one hand and a written announcement in the other. “Your attention, please,” he calls out. “Given recent events, many of you have voiced concerns about being outside after dark.”

Diners seated at the long tables in the cafeteria stop their chatting and lend the do-gooder their ears, a rare sight because diners usually pay no heed to special announcements (just like the students at Helen Keller).

“The do-good council assures you that the cowardly attack on a local townie a few days ago was not random. It targeted one specific boy. Some of you fear that a crazed murderer is on the loose. Our information tells us otherwise.”

A redheaded boy waves his knife and fork and shouts, “I confess! I did it! I’m the murderer!” He pretends to knife the girl sitting beside him. Many diners erupt in laughter. As I scan the tables, though, I see a boy who is not laughing. It is Benny Baggarly. He is staring into his bowl of stew.

“So feel free to circulate after dark,” the do-gooder goes on. “But remember that anyone caught out after midnight will face detention. Thank you.”

I push my sunglasses up the bridge of my nose, grab some napkins, and hurry out of the cafeteria to bike back to our hideout.

I must tell Johnny about our mistake. Charles Lindblom is an old boy; he is not Gunboy.

I accept a share of the responsibility for what happened because I warned Johnny that Gunboy was approaching when Czar emerged fuming from the shadows. Had I kept quiet, Johnny might not have mistaken Czar for Gunboy. Yet Johnny is convinced that Czar is Gunboy. My roommate claims he is now sleeping “like a damn baby log,” but he is lying: I hear him moaning in his sleep. We take turns sleeping on a lumpy old couch in the janitor’s office; every other night, one of us sleeps on the floor atop throw pillows.

My own insomnia is worse than ever. Last night I even went out after curfew. A flashlight in hand, I returned to the scene of the crime. I climbed back into the jungle gym and sat in that makeshift jail for more than an hour. I had brought along a box cutter from our hideout and used it to make nicks up and down my arms and legs. While I did this, I thought about you, Mother and Father. How I missed your simple chats about banal things like the most effective blue shampoo to treat dandruff. How I wished I could portal back to America to see you, if only for a moment. Yet I knew from the beginning that Czar and the haunters were frauds. I knew they would not help me travel back to 222 Hill Drive.

I felt very alone in that jungle gym. I did not cry, but I did sigh deeply.